1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to devices for recovering refrigerant from air conditioning systems, and in particular to a device which will also flush the air conditioning system of impurities.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Air conditioning systems such as in vehicles utilize a refrigerant that scientists believe is harmful to the Earth's atmosphere. In the past, when working on an air conditioning system, often the worker would vent the existing refrigerant to atmosphere. Now, these environmental concerns and resulting regulations are requiring many workers to recover the refrigerant, clean it and reuse it.
Prior art refrigerant recovery systems generally utilize an accumulator for trapping oil and liquid refrigerant, a filter dryer for removing moisture and impurities, and a compressor for compressing the gaseous refrigerant into high pressure gaseous refrigerant. A condenser condenses the gaseous refrigerant into liquid refrigerant, which is then placed into a storage container.
It is also known in the prior art to have a cleaning cycle. In the cleaning cycle, the refrigerant will be recirculated out of the storage container, through the recovery apparatus for further filtering and cleaning, then placed back into the storage container.
While these systems will withdraw and clean refrigerant adequately, often, there will be a need to flush the air conditioning system. Because of the failure in the air conditioning system, there may be metal parts, powders and sludge located in the components of the air conditioning system. In the prior art, the worker will discharge an aerosol flush through the air conditioning system. This aerosol flush also utilizes a refrigerant chemical, however. The recycling aerosol flush would be vented to the atmosphere, which could be harmful.